This particular intersection of the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago, at Devon & Greenview, has been ripe for CC-spottings. I’ve made do in this city for over a decade without a car, which necessitates using public transit for things like getting groceries, which I do just one block east of this gas station, at a local market. I’ll spend usually 10-15 minutes waiting for either the 151 or 36 CTA bus, which can provide primo people and car watching from the bus stop.

It was at my neighborhood supermarket where I also had spotted (and photographed) a pristine Mark V at dusk (posted to the Cohort late last year). My thought when spotting this car was that it must take real perseverance to retain it as a daily driver, given that the daily gas bill would likely exceed my weekly allowance for groceries, depending on how far and how frequently this Mark is regularly driven. Still, the sight of it brought a smile to my face. And after all, this gentleman has a car – and I’m riding the bus with two arms full of grocery bags. My day was enriched for having seen this classic Lincoln.

Rogers Park, Chicago, Illinois.

Thursday, August 1, 2013.

45 Comments

Growing up my Aunt Lila had a brown 1973 Mark IV and then a 1974 Gold Luxury Mark IV. I spent many a day in those back seats with my cousins. I can still hear the sound of that Ford starter and purr of the huge 460 as she drove off. I remember her tricking us with the rim blow steering wheel for the horn, and often telling us to shut those rear seat reading lamps off as they were distracting when driving at night. What memories – thanks for the cool sighting Joseph!

My father had a 72. You jog memories of the loud “chack” sound of the automatic seat-back release as either door was opened or closed. Dad’s car was triple brown, and it’s a good thing I didn’t suffer from claustrophobia, or that back seat would have been torture.

Wow JP, I totally remember that noise now that you mentioned it! I even remember the distinct leather smell that they had when you opened the door, too. They also had a loud seat belt buzzer when they were started, and I remember seeing the red idiot lights that were in 2 columns on the side of the speedometer. How about the clock with roman numerals??

As far as the back seat is concerned, luckily we were little kids and didn’t know any better. If it were today I wouldn’t last 2 minutes back there without getting carsick!

Tom, I like the idea of actually using the rear seat reading lamps while in motion. It gave me a visual of nighttime air travel on a smooth jet. Those reading lamps must have seemed very cool back then.

I have always been a big Cannon fan. My favorite episode is when he needs to rent a wetsuit to search for a bicycle that may have been tossed overboard to eliminate evidence. The guy at the rental place says to him that it is the largest suit that they have and, somehow, he squeezes into it. Not only that, he has an underwater fight and… solves the crime.

I prefer the Thunderbird of this era, and a small bumper model at that. If I ever wanted a Mark it would be a III or a VII.
I imagine with falling gas prices, driving a car like this as a DD isn’t quite as painful as it was a year ago.

Never mind the car, what about the gas station? Citgo, originally Cities Service Co., is headquartered in Houston but is an “indirect” subsidiary of Venezuela’s state oil company.

Valero, despite its Hispanic name, is a Fortune 500 company headquartered in San Antonio. It derives from the Spanish title of the Alamo. I figure if it’s worth knowing where your car is built, it’s also worth knowing who you’re buying your gas from.

One often hears scare talk about “foreign oil.” I wouldn’t worry too much since our leading sources are in this hemisphere & show no inclination to stop selling to us.

I do like the Mark IV as well. I think the Mark V has it beat in the looks department, but the IV is arguably the “broughamiest” of all the Marks, and the most baroque as well. It has an undeniable presence, borne of both size and shape. And those special editions! Not only the first appearance of the designer editions, but also a multitude of other specials not seen before or since. I saw a rather fabulous example at a car show several years ago that actually had a vine-like pattern inlaid into the rub strips–now that’s detail.

Hamtramck, Mi, and I drive the model ( Chrysler F-Body ) largely responsible for the downturn of the company and closure of Dodge Main. ( In Hamtramck ) The city never makes a comeback after that closure, even though they were making quite handful of Cadillac DTS and LeSabre/Lucerne there. Driving that car is more sourer in Hamtramck than an Aveo made in Korea, but I do live near and I occasionally drive around there.

It really looks sorry though. ( and Chrysler was quick to run from the neighboring Highland Park )

In the first photo, it looks as though something is coming loose under the car.

It appears as though the hidden headlights are still in good working order. The hood ornament still stands tall and proud, having managed to avoid the pitfalls of age and/or vandalism.

The low point for gas mileage and performance was the 1974 model year for virtually all cars. If this is a 1975 or 1976 model, it would achieve slightly better gas mileage, although “better” hardly means “good.”

Even in an era of huge cars, these had presence. Beautifully styled with a 460 to boot. Even non-car people could tell a Mark from a block away. A favorite with celebrities, the player’s parking lot at old Memorial Stadium in Baltimore was full of these.

This car certainly had presence. I didn’t have the presence of mind to take out my earphones from my MP3 player to hear what this ice-blue Lincoln’s motor / exhaust sounded like – which I’m sure would have been another sensory treat.

I had accidentally submitted this entry/post before discovering another frame of the car in action which I liked as much as the other two pictures. I’ve uploaded this picture to the gallery, but haven’t figured out how to edit this post to add this shot. If a site administrator could add this shot, I’d appreciate it. If not, no worries – here’s the shot…

The Citgo station is one of the only few gas stations around 10 miles radius where I live doesn’t trigger check engine light in my 32V InTech V8. Even premium gasoline from Shell gas station on 8 Mile Rd gives vibration on it. Fuel quality is very questionable in Detroit area, as when LeSabre doesn’t feel right for the gasoline from a station, something is very wrong. Few other Marathon stations have good quality fuel also, but the rest, sigh*, even Meijer’s. ( valero station across the street of Citgo burned the station for insurance scam )

However, as long as I go further, the difference of fuel quality between the station disappears ( around Waterford, Clarkston. )

I miss my 72 Thunderbird, it was baby blue with a black vinyl top… Complete with landau bar(the pimp bar) on the C-pillar.

The car was pretty FAST… So one day, me and my buddy looked under the hood. What we saw amazed us… It was a 428 Cobra Jet, with the Ford blue air cleaner.

Funny, because I thought the last year for the 428CJ was 1971. Unless, my T-bird had a big block swap or the engine was a Ford factory leftover, installed in upcoming LTDs, T-Birds, Galaxies, and Torinos. Who knows.

This was back in 1988… so I didn’t know how valuable these engines were. I was a Pontiac guy. Heck, they were in the BEST versions of Shelbys.

I wish I had that 428CJ, now… because it would be inside my 88 Mustang 5.0 notchy.

Actually it would fit better. The strut towers are much further apart on the Fox platform than the shock towers were on the old Falcon based platform. For perspective, despite the modest displacements the 4.6 engines are the widest V8s ford ever produced and were used in the 96-04 SN95 iterations of the basic Fox platform. Conversely when retrofitting a modular engine into a first generation Mustang often requires the removal of the shock towers and fitting a custom front suspension, just to get the engine to fit.

A friend of mine about 35 years ago drove a Mark IV. It was white over turquoise w/ white seats and turquoise fluffy carpet and turquoise dash. It was a great riding car and definitely not for the shy person!

I ride through Rogers Park up Glenwood and Greenview at least once a week on my way to Evanston, and most of the interesting street-parked cars I’ve seen in the city have been in that area. There is a mid-60s Valiant that lives slightly south on Glenwood, a ’76 Eldorado down by Foster, and on and on.

If I were to own a Continental Mark IV it would be a 1972 or 1973 model because I thought the taillights looked far better on those cars and performance seems to be slightly better on those cars as well

While it may now seem ridiculous to drive such a big car with only the driver present, how come it doesn’t seem so strange to drive your 4 wheel drive, quad cab F 250 turbo diesel long bed to the convenience store for a slurpy and a pack of smokes? ( The truck is only slightly longer than my run-on sentence, sorry). This thought came up as I walked out to my long bed F150 in a parking lot. It occurred to me that the truck was probably longer than a Mark IV.

I agree, people always say that they don’t know how someone can afford to drive such a car when it doesn’t get any worse than lots of the full size SUVs and pickups on the road each day. Jason says that his 75 Thunderbird which is essentially the same car got 11-13 MPG and up to 17 MPG on the hwy. That is just about the same as many full size SUVs and Pickups from just a few years ago that are still out there racking up lots of miles. Heck our 03 “mid size” SUV with the V8 has seen as low as 13 when it was doing lots of city driving and the typical hwy MPG is 17-18.

I can’t imagine not owning a Motor Vehicle even though I don’t mind riding the bus and do so just for grins occasionally or when I’m out of town .

The last time I rode the Ghetto Bus down Dorchester Av. in Boston , it reminded me of living in Centro America as most of the people were carrying multiple bags of groceries and one Lady got on with a live Turkey , this didn’t faze anyone . that was in 2013 no less .

Nate, your bus ride sounded awesome. That scenario you described is pretty much why I love both riding the 36 bus and also this particular, independent supermarket. Any ride on the 36 on Broadway from Lakeview through Rogers Park is going to be chock full of multicultural, socioeconomically-diverse color. Any trip to this market (and in my own condo building) is going to have usually at least three languages spoken in common areas, at any given time. The cars in the market’s parking lot usually reflect the diversity inside.